


I’ll See You In My Nightmares

by saturni_stellis



Category: Independence Day (Movies), Silent Zone - Stephen Molstad
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 22:51:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20713859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturni_stellis/pseuds/saturni_stellis
Summary: Brackish has some problems sleeping, and Milton is determined to help him...





	I’ll See You In My Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> Set very early after Silent Zone and heavily based on the events that take place in the book, so it might not make a great deal of sense if you haven't read the book! This is very much a 'Silent Zone fic' more than it is an ID4 fic!
> 
> (EDIT: I've just realised I've uploaded this on the day of the Area 51 raid! Hope y'all had a good time out there)

When Brackish and Milton got together, it was a full year (eleven months and thirteen days if Milton admitted he was counting) before Brackish spent a full night in a bed that wasn’t his own. And that made it two years since Milton accepted the position of Chief Medical Officer for Area 51, and two years and seven months since Brackish’s ‘encounter’ with aliens in the Mexican desert.

The dry expanse of land nicknamed the 'Silent Zone’ and the young doctor’s experience shared with his colleague Doctor Lenel, rarely came up in conversation. Milton could count maybe two times in the years he’d known Brackish Okun that he’d even touched upon his escapades in the desert or what the aliens looked like in his memory (before he lost it for a week straight.)

After a few nights of bed sharing however, Milton was awoken by a sweaty, shuddering body next to him. He lifted himself up on his elbows, slightly startled at first, the fog clearing in his mind before he remembered that there was someone else in bed with him. He turned and saw Brackish twisting and turning under the sheets, his light brown shoulder length hair strewn across his face, clinging to his skin in beads of sweat that were visible even in the dark blue glow of his room.

“Brackish…” Milton said quietly. It’d been a while since he’d had to bring someone out of a nightmare, but he remembered it well, and how disorientating it could be for the one coming out of it. The worst thing you could do was startle the subject further. But it was no use, and Brackish’s arms only reached out further, his legs kicking harder. Milton grabbed his shoulder and shook him, firm but not too violently, saying his name again, a little louder.

This time, Brackish’s eyes unclenched, opening wide as he jolted upright suddenly and waved his arms as if he were trying to desperately remove something from his skin.

“Get them off me, get them off GETHEMOFFGETTHEMOFF!”

“Hey! Hey, Brackish, stop, baby, it’s okay.” Milton pulled him forward, the other man finally settling down as his breath slowed. Despite Brackish looking slightly confused, eyelids hooded and mouth hanging open, Milton could practically feel his heart pounding in his chest. “Baby…it’s just a dream…”

“Wha…what?”

Milton had seen PTSD before; it took many ways, shapes and forms. Brackish had no idea what the hell was going on and was more than likely still half asleep. The main thing was his brain was out of the place it had been in seconds ago. Milton found professionalism hard to grasp when he was suddenly caring for someone that meant so much to him. He hadn’t admitted that he loved Brackish yet, but by God he did, with every fibre of his being. And seeing Brackish like one of his patients from the military, who had been through war zones and seen their comrades being blown to smithereens before their eyes… he wasn’t sure he could deal with that.

“You okay? Was I snoring?”

Milton was suddenly aware that Brackish was speaking to him, so he shook his head and lay back down, pulling the other man in close towards him.

“It’s kinda hot, baby will you turn the air-con up?”

Before Milton even had a chance to get out of bed and adjust the temperature on the dial, Brackish was already fast asleep.

*

The next morning was like any other. Brackish sneaked out early after they shared a quick kiss, so as to avoid any suspicions being raised. They met in the cafeteria for breakfast, as though it were the complete natural thing to do…

_Oh, hello Dr Okun…_

_Good morning Dr Isaacs…_

And they’d take a seat at a table somewhere that was placed so if anyone did happen to walk past they could be heard talking about work.

As Brackish broke off the crusts of his Pop Tarts, Milton leant in and spoke over his cup of coffee. “Do you remember waking up last night?”

Brackish looked over at Milton for a few seconds before biting into the white icing and jam-covered pastry. “No,” he said, and Milton could tell he wasn’t lying. If Brackish was anything, he was a terrible fibber.

Milton sipped his coffee and smiled at one of the scientists who greeted him as they walked past. Once they were out of earshot, Milton spoke again. “You were having some sort of wild dream. You woke up all frenzied. You really don’t remember?”

Brackish shrugged, continuing to eat, what Milton would loosely term, 'breakfast’. “I never remember my dreams. Sounds gnarly though. Was I talking in my sleep? My mom said I used to do that all the time you know? I’d say really weird stuff about eyes on sticks and intestines in jars. That’s why she stopped letting me watch the Twilight Zone-”

“Brackish.” Milton knew if he didn’t cut him off now, he’d be late for his shift. “Look, next time you wake up in the middle of the night, I want you to write down what you dream about, okay?”

Brackish looked at Milton as if he was crazy. “What! Why?”

“Please just do it. I think it might help with…”

“With what? Listen ba-” Brackish stopped himself, looking around the room. It was relatively quiet. Area 51 wasn’t even at full staff capacity yet, and most of the employees preferred to eat in their own quarters. “Milton,” he continued. “I don’t need a dream diary. You know, for a Doctor, I wouldn’t have thought you believed in that kinda crap.”

Milton didn’t want to push it any further. Maybe he was being over-reactive. Perhaps it was just a one off. Who was he to start determining Brackish’s sleep patterns when they’d only been sleeping next to each other for the past couple of nights? He let it slide and started getting up from his chair.

“Okay but… I really think you should lay off the uh… you know.” Milton mimed what would be seen to anyone else as smoking a cigarette, but they both knew what he was alluding to. “…before bedtime.”

Brackish rolled his eyes as he muttered a sarcastic, “Yes Doctor.”

However, a light squeeze on the shoulder and a small brush of Milton’s fingertips at his neck was enough to make him grin through a mouthful of Pop Tarts.

*

It happened again that night, and again the night after - almost like clockwork. Milton woke to the bed shaking, and when he opened his eyes, Brackish looked as though he was convulsing under the cover. Stripping the duvet off him, he took Brackish’s shoulders and jolted him out of his sleep-induced nightmare.

“Get off, get off no nonono PLEASE NO…” For a moment it sounded like Brackish was sobbing, but when he opened his eyes he blinked a few times and with a voice laced with sleep he slurred an innocent, “you okay baby?” up at Milton.

In the morning Milton would confront him about it before Brackish left his quarters.

*

“I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You were like, a different person! I mean you were kicking and screaming and telling me to get off you.”

Brackish merely shrugged. Curled up on Milton’s sofa in his oversized dressing gown, he looked like a young man without a care in the world. But it had been four nights now of the same sleep behaviour, and Milton was starting to grow increasingly worried about him.

“Baby, I don’t want to startle you, but… I saw this kinda stuff all the time when I worked with patients that had suffered heavy trauma and I just think maybe…” He wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. With anyone else it would’ve been so simple, so why couldn’t he just tell Brackish how it was?

_'I can recommend you to this person.’_  
_ 'I suggest you take this to help you sleep.’_  
_ 'Have you considered getting counselling?’_  
It was all so clinical.

“But I haven’t suffered any trauma. It’s just bad dreams. Maybe it’s just from being cooped up in the facility all day you know? I’ll write to Spelman again, try and get him to lighten up on the whole Vegas thing. Maybe we could take a trip togeth-?”

“What about Guerrero?”

An odd silence fell between them for the first time ever, and Milton almost felt the temperature drop in the room. After what felt like an eternity Brackish forced a nervous chuckle, his head twitching as it always did when he was trying to be particularly cool about something. “I think I’d prefer somewhere other than Mexico, babe.” Milton knew he had tried to say it in jest, but the words still came out a little shaky.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he answered, quietly.

Brackish started chewing on his lips, bringing his knees up under his chin. “Look, I’m over it, okay? It was like a million years ago.”

“It’s barely been three years.”

“Yeah and a lot happens in three years!” Brackish gestured between them, as if that was supposed to offer any kind of resolve, but Milton knew he’d embarrassed him, and the last thing Brackish wanted to come across as was some kind of bed wetter who had bad dreams about aliens.

“Well you know PTSD from extreme trauma can onset way later down the line of the actual event. Men who’ve-”

“P.S.T what? Now you’re just throwing doctor words at me!” Brackish got up and took off Milton’s dressing gown, throwing it over the back of the sofa and walking back into the bedroom, forcing the other man to stand up quickly and follow him.

“Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, it’s a-”

“You think I have a disorder!?”

“Baby will let you me finish? It’s not a disorder, it’s a state of mind brought on as a result of injury or severe psychological shock, which is what you had in that desert!”

“It wasn’t a psychological shock!” Brackish raised his voice for the first time since Milton had ever known him, and it forced him to stand still on the spot. “I don’t know what happened to me when I passed out in that desert and quite frankly, I don’t want to know. So I don’t need any doctors or any medical juices flowing through my blood to try and make me remember and… that is that.” Brackish flattened out his hands, swiping them in front of him as if to accentuate his point.

Milton nodded. He didn’t want to argue with him, that was far from his point. He wanted him to be okay. That was all he ever wanted. As a doctor. As a friend. As a lover. He just wanted Brackish to be okay. He should’ve told him that before Brackish left his quarters without saying goodbye.

That evening Milton waited for the coy knock at his door which usually came at around 10:00pm. He’d open his door and in Brackish would come, usually excitable or overly touchy, they’d kiss for what could last up to several hours, and if it went further, then sometimes into the early hours of the morning…

But tonight, the knock never came. Milton waited until half eleven, before going over to the telephone and ringing the internal number for Brackish’s quarters. There was no answer, so he hung up and slumped onto the sofa. He thought about walking the short distance to the Director’s quarters himself, or going down to the stacks to see if he’d buried himself in the new filing system. Instead, after an hour of pondering and worrying, he resigned himself to bed and had the worst nights sleep since he started working at Area 51.

*

After two days, Milton started to get the feeling Brackish was avoiding him. They worked in fairly close quarters a lot of the time, so it wasn’t common for them to be apart for so long. The medical facility was still in the process of being finalised, so Milton spent a lot of time in the main hangar with the ship. But over the last forty-eight hours, Brackish was conveniently needed “elsewhere” in the facility. Down in the basement to look over new Government papers, cooped up in his office writing up reports, he even had to go upstairs to speak to the guards and brief them on some new orders from Nimzicki and the Secret Service (or Secret Circus as they so liked to call it). But this was stuff Milton knew Brackish would avoid doing at any cost if he wasn’t trying to get out of something else.

So eventually Milton took it upon himself to knock on his door late at night after he knew he’d signed off for the day. It took a while for the door to open and when it did, Brackish peered out from a crack, his eyes red behind his large glasses. His habitual head nod was at an all time high as he let Milton through the door, hands wringing in front of him as Milton walked a little further into his quarters, trying not to be too distracted by the mess. Brackish was one for taking his work home with him- books and papers lay strewn everywhere amongst the odd empty packet of Cheetos and cans of soda. Brackish, now in Milton’s presence, seemed oblivious to the untidiness or the fact that Milton was trying not to look at it.

“So uh… what’s up?” Brackish said, trying to break the silence.

Milton wanted to smile but tried to hide it behind a serious face. It was like they were back to square one, finding excuses to be in each other’s presence, neither of them admitting that they liked the other, too nervous to make the first move. It was a wonder they ever managed to get together in the first place.

“I came to check on you. I’m worried about you.”

Brackish waved a hand, crouching down to pick up some books. “I’m fine, I’m totally groovy.”

“You been smoking?”

“No!” Brackish said it so quickly he almost dropped some of the books under his arms. “Maybe, just… a little one. It helps uh… helps me sleep.”

“You been sleeping badly?”

Brackish’s lips pursed as he rested some of the books on the counter top and started picking up some of the ledgers scattered on the sofa. “Late nights is all. You know this new budget thing came in the other day and I’m finding it hard to…grasp it and stuff.”

Milton went forward and took the ledgers out of Brackish’s hands and as he did, he said, “So no more nightmares then?”

He piled them on top of the books, and when he turned back to face Brackish, the man was standing stone cold still, lips trembling as tears brimmed his eyes.

“Baby?”

When Brackish opened his mouth his words came out in a choked sob. “I’m not going crazy, right?”

When Milton went forward and tried to take Brackish’s arm his heart sank as Brackish pulled away. “It’s not…it’s not that I…oh shit. I don’t remember what the dreams are. I never remember them I just wake up and I feel so alone and scared and it’s like something is on me. And I don’t know what it is and I can’t get it off and then…I wake up and…”

“Brackish…”

“I don’t know why! I don’t know why but the last couple of nights when I haven’t been with you, I wake up and I’m in that hospital again in Fort Irwin and you’re there and you’re looking at me and…” He stopped because he hadn’t taken in a full breath since he’d started speaking and it finally caught up with him. Brackish’s hand went over his mouth and he clasped his eyes shut before opening them again and looking up at Milton, blue eyes blown wide, and Milton had never seen him look so helpless.

After a few seconds Brackish went forward of his own accord and buried his head into the crook of Milton’s neck, letting the other man wrap his arms around him, holding him tightly.

“The next time you start seeing me in your nightmares, you come tell me straight away instead of avoiding me for two days though, okay?” Milton joked, pulling Brackish’s head back, wiping the tears from his face with his thumbs.

Brackish laughed, spluttering out the words as he did, “You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”

Milton shook his head, kissing him square on the lips before pulling him in close again. “No baby. I don’t think you’re an idiot.”

Eventually Brackish relaxed in his arms.

*

Brackish spent fewer nights in his own bed as the weeks went on, and it eventually got to a point where he seldom even went to his own quarters anymore. The nightmares subsided, but they didn’t go away. Brackish still didn’t remember them half the time, but when he did, he told Milton about them in detail. After some time, Milton managed to convince Brackish to start seeing someone else about it, someone who could really help in the way Milton couldn’t.

But really, Milton helped in a way that no psychologist could. He was there when Brackish woke in fevered sweats. He was there when he was jolted awake, heart racing and breath short. His arms tightened around his waist, his voice came into his ear, low and calm, soothing him back to Earth, where he knew he was safe.

One day, Brackish asked him why he’d put up with it, why he persevered with it to such an extent that it forced him to admit he might have had a problem. Milton told him it was simple: it was because he loved him.

In his head, the first time Milton told Brackish he loved him would’ve been under more romantic circumstances, but when he said it, Brackish’s cheeks flushed pink and he giggled like a schoolgirl, muttering 'cool to the power of ten’ before burrowing his head into his chest.

For them, Milton thought as he pulled him close and kissed him deep, it didn’t get more romantic than that.


End file.
